BASEBALL; CARDINALS PAINT CROWN RED

By TYLER KEPNER

Published: October 28, 2006

The fans here are patient. They are adoring and savvy and upbeat, too, but mostly patient. They waited nearly a quarter-century for Friday night, through steamy summers and frustrating autumns. They waited until a wind-whipped, frigid night in the heartland, when the St. Louis Cardinals returned to glory.

The baseball world is bathed in red again. The Cardinals won their first World Series since 1982 with a 4-2 victory against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 at Busch Stadium. It was the 10th championship for the Cardinals, more than any other franchise except the Yankees.

''I'm looking around at all the confetti, and the fans are still here,'' said closer Adam Wainwright, holding his month-old daughter on the field some 20 minutes after the final out. ''This is such a great town and a great team. We fought so hard to be here. We deserve it, and they deserve it.''

The Cardinals won Friday on the skinny frame of starter Jeff Weaver, the big heart of shortstop David Eckstein and the slipshod fielding of the Tigers. Detroit made eight errors in the World Series, five by pitchers, and gave up two unearned runs in Game 5. At the plate, the Tigers batted .199.

Eckstein, the 5-foot-7 leadoff man, followed up his four-hit performance in Game 4 with two hits and two runs batted in Friday. He was named most valuable player in the Series with a .364 average.

Weaver, a goat of the World Series for the Yankees three years ago, pitched eight innings, striking out nine and allowing one earned run on four hits. Wainwright earned the save in the ninth, striking out Brandon Inge on a slider with runners at the corners to clinch the title.

Inge was part of a Tigers team that set an American League record with 119 losses three years ago. The Tigers surpassed all expectations this season, but the Series belonged to St. Louis.

''We didn't play well, and we got beat,'' Tigers closer Todd Jones said. ''The Cardinals were the better team. They deserved the championship. It doesn't take anything away from how these guys feel about what we were able to accomplish.''

Wainwright, a rookie with one month's experience as a closer, leaped after the final out and embraced catcher Yadier Molina in midair. Players streamed from the dugout and bullpen, collapsing in a pile behind the mound.

Red fireworks burst from beyond the left-field wall, where the old Busch Stadium once sat. That was the site, two years ago to the hour, where the Boston Red Sox celebrated their long-awaited championship. The Cardinals were bystanders then, never holding a lead in a four-game sweep.

Last fall brought a final disappointment. The Houston Astros beat the Cardinals for their first-ever National League pennant, and the old Busch Stadium closed for good.

Now, at last, it is the Cardinals' turn. They won despite only 83 victories in the regular season, the fewest ever by a World Series champion in a non-strike year. The Cardinals struggled with injuries and long losing streaks but revived themselves in October behind a healthy lineup, a deep bench and a sturdy pitching staff.

''We had some really good teams and we just never made it,'' said center fielder Jim Edmonds, a Cardinal since 2000. ''We just kept plugging along and hoped we got another shot. We got a shot and we played good ball at the right time.''

Historically, the Cardinals had not handled 3-1 leads well. They led by that margin in the 1968 World Series against the Tigers, but lost in seven. The same thing happened in 1985, against the Kansas City Royals, and in the 1996 playoff with the Atlanta Braves, in Tony La Russa's first year as the Cardinals' manager.

The decade has been thrilling for fans, from the home run feats of Mark McGwire to the instant stardom of Albert Pujols. Yet the title has eluded this town. In the years since 1982, the Cardinals have made the playoffs nine times. No other team had reached the postseason so many times in those years without winning it all.

From the start, it looked promising for St. Louis. Weaver retired the side in the first inning, striking out two, while Tigers starter Justin Verlander seemed swallowed up in all the red.

Verlander walked the bases loaded, mixing in two wild pitches to tie a single-game World Series record. By the time the cleanup hitter was batting, the Tigers had action in their bullpen.

The inning consumed 35 pitches -- matching Verlander's uniform number -- but he escaped on a groundout. The Cardinals scored in the second when Eckstein singled down the third-base line and Inge threw the ball away for an error, but they left a runner in scoring position, again missing the chance to take control early.

It would cost them in the fourth, when right fielder Chris Duncan dropped a routine fly by Magglio Ord?, the struggling cleanup hitter. Sean Casey, who batted .529 in the Series, homered on the next pitch.

The Tigers led, 2-1, the fourth game in which they had the lead. But like two others, this lead did not last.

With one out in the fourth, Verlander allowed singles to the seventh and eighth hitters, Molina and So Taguchi. That brought up Weaver, who missed badly on his first attempt at a bunt. His second came right back to Verlander, who picked up the ball off the wet grass, turned and whipped a wild throw past third.

The score was tied on the fifth error in five games by a Tigers pitcher, a World Series record. Instead of two outs, there was one. And when Eckstein grounded out sharply to Carlos Guill?s backhand at short, Taguchi scored to put the Cardinals ahead, 3-2.

His poor throw aside, Verlander was settling in, retiring six in a row after his error. The problem for the Tigers was Weaver, the pitcher who had been a cornerstone of their rebuilding effort at the start of this decade.

The Tigers traded Weaver to the Yankees in 2002, but his stay in New York ended when he allowed a game-ending home run in the next year's World Series. He came to St. Louis in July after three disastrous months with the Angels, for whom he went 3-10.

In that way, Weaver embodied his team as a whole: It came together late, but come together it did. Weaver has been reliable all October, and never more so than Friday.

''When you come to a team that believes in you from the get-go, it just builds your confidence,'' Weaver said. ''You know what they say: 'never say die.' ''

Weaver, a demonstrative pitcher, kept his composure at important moments. With two outs in the sixth inning, Duncan misplayed another fly ball, letting a drive by Casey drop just behind him on the warning track for a double.

Up next was Iv?Rodr?ez, a probable Hall of Famer. Weaver dropped to a sidearm angle and struck him out, shaking his fist in front of him as he strode off the mound.

In the seventh, when Pujols dove to his right for a leadoff grounder by Pl?do Polanco, Weaver was there to pick the throw from the dirt and find the bag for the out. He finished the inning easily, and the Cardinals needed only six outs for the championship.

It was the seventh-inning stretch, but many fans had been standing all night. Weaver -- born in California, hardened in New York -- noticed. There is nothing like Midwest baseball, he said.

''The fans were up on their feet from the get-go, just like good fans should,'' Weaver said. ''We gave them something to cheer for.''

In spirit if not in temperature, the players felt the warmth of the fans. The team of the heartland was back on its perch, a champion again.

Photos: Closer Adam Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina after Wainwright struck out Brandon Inge of the Tigers to give the Cardinals the title. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)(pg. D1); With runners on first and third, Brandon Inge struck out on three pitches, ending the threat and the season. (Photo by Amy Sancetta/Associated Press); Starter Jeff Weaver, the winning pitcher, allowed two runs in eight innings, striking out nine. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)(pg. D3)